…by Justin Harris

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When The Phone Stops Ringing

I so often hear complaints about the amount of calls and questions we get in our Human Resources departments, but what if they stopped coming?

I’m guilty sometimes too. From time to time I let out a huge sigh or say, “What now?!?!” before I pick up the phone, but I remind myself quickly of one major thing before I answer it to get me in the right head space. Human Resources should be the epitome of Customer Service.

Clients (internal or external) don’t constantly call people they don’t trust or can’t depend on. Every call we get is an opportunity to not only help make a difference, but an opportunity to put our offices on the positive map and boost confidence in our service.

We teach customer service to company employees, but we aren’t exempt from delivering the same level of treatment that we preach. We should welcome the calls and questions, as being the first line of defense helps eliminate the issues where we are the last line of defense. When responding to client issues, it’s important for us to not sound as if we are doing them a favor or as if we are being inconvenienced…because it’s far more inconvenient when we have to deal with escalated situations that could have been avoided had we gotten involved sooner.

Remembering these things helps me to clear up that little attitude I may have before answering calls and reminds me to answer that phone or reply to that email with the very level of service that I expect when I reach out to someone for help.

Even when we don’t think that we operate in a Customer Service role, everything we do…and more importantly how we do things affects and impacts someone else. This huge responsibility is motivation to be the resource that we have been called to be to our employees and in our organizations. Making someone else’s day will almost always help to make yours as well.

When the phone stops ringing and the email notifications are no longer popping up, it could quite possibly mean that we are no longer on the radar…that what we have to say is no longer welcomed or relevant in the eyes of our public, or that no one wants to deal with us because we are just plain rude. And when we are no longer relevant and no one is depending on us for the answers or assistance, we have at some point failed and fallen short of our purpose, which should include treating every person as a valued customer while contributing positively to the bottom lines of our companies.